words, over and over again, as if he had gone distracted-as I believe he had." "The will," said Mr. Brownlow, as Oliver's tears fell fast. "I will go on to that." "The will was in the same spirit as that letter. He talked of miseries which his wife had brought upon him, of the rebellious disposition, vice, malice, and premature bad passions of you, his only son, who had been trained to hate him; and left you and your mother each an annui. ty of eight hundred pounds. The bulk of his property he divided into two equal portions-one for Agnes Fleming, and the other for their child, if it should be born alive, and ever come of age. If it was a girl, it was to come into the money unconditionally; but if a boy, only on the stipulation that in his minority he should never have stained his name with any public act of dishonour, meanness, cowardice, or wrong. He did this, he said, to mark his confidence in the mother, and his conviction-only strengthened by approaching death--that the child would share her gentle heart and noble nature. If he was disappointed in this expectation, then the money was to come to you; for then, and not till then, when both children were equal, would he recognize your prior claim upon his purse, who had none upon his heart, but had from an infant repulsed him with coldness and aversion." 66 My mother," said Monks, in a louder tone, "did what a woman should have done -she burnt this will. The letter never reached its destination, but that and other proofs she kept, in case they ever tried to lie away the blot. The girl's father had the truth from her with every aggravation that her violent hate-I love her for it now-could add. Goaded by shame and dishonour, he fled with his children into a remote corner of Wales, changing his very name, that his friends might never know of his retreat; and here, no great while afterwards, he was found dead in his bed. The girl had left her home in secret some weeks before; he had searched for her on foot in every town and village near, and it was on the night that he returned home, assured that she had destroyed herself to hide her shame and his, that his old heart broke." There was a short silence here, until Mr. Brownlow took up the thread of the narrative. "Years after this," he said, "this man's-Edward Leeford's-mother came to me. He had left her when only eighteen, robbed her of jewels and money, gambled, squandered, forged, and fled to London, where for two years he had associated with the lowest outcasts. She was sinking under a painful and incurable disease, and wished to recover him before she died. Inquiries were set on foot; strict searches made, unavailing for a long time, but ultimately successful; and he went back with her to France," "There she died," said Monks," after a lingering illness; and on her death-bed she bequeathed these secrets to me, together with her unquenchable and deadly hatred of all whom they involved, though she need not have left me that, for I had inherited it long before. She would not believe that the girl had destroyed herself and the child too, but was filled with the impression that a male child had been born, and was alive. I swore to her if ever it crossed my path to hunt it down, never to let it rest, to pursue it with the bitterest and most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by dragging it, if I could, to the very gallows-foot. She was right. He came in my way at last; I began well, and but for babbling drabs I would have finished as I began; I would, I would !" As the villain folded his arms tight together, and muttered curses on himself in the impotence of baffled malice, Mr. Brownlow turned to the terrified group beside him, and explained that the Jew, who had been his old accomplice and confident, had a large reward for keeping Oli. ver ensnared, of which some part was to be given up in the event of his being rescued, and that a dispute on this head had led to their visit to the country house for the purpose of identifying him. "The locket and ring ?" said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Monks. "I bought them from the man and woman I told you of, who stole them from the nurse, who stole them from the corpse," answered Monks, without raising his eyes. "You know what became of them." Mr. Brownlow merely nodded to Mr. Grimwig, who, disappearing with great alacrity, shortly returned, pushing in Mrs. Bumble, and dragging her unwilling consort after her. "Do my hi's deceive me!" cried thusiasm, "or is that little Oliver ? I've been a-grieving for you!" Mr. Bumble, with ill-feigned en- "Hold your tongue, fool," murmured Mrs. Bumble. "Isn't natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble !" remonstrated the work-house master. "Can't I be supposed to feel-I as brought him up porochially— when I see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest description! I always loved that boy as if he'd been my -my-own grandfather," said Mr. Bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison. "Master Oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the white waistcoat. Ah! he went to heaven last week in a oak coffin with plated handles, Oliver." "How do "Come, sir," said Mr. Grimwig, tartly, "suppress your feelings." "I will do my endeavours, sir," replied Mr. Bumble. you do, sir? I hope you are very well." This salutation was addressed to Mr. Brownlow, who had stepped |